Deuteronomy 32

Deuteronomy 32:2

Deu. 32:2. God here speaks to the people quite in a different manner from what He did at Mount Sinai, when He spake to them out of the midst of the fire, with a great and terrible voice that was not suited to their tender frame, and that exceedingly terrified them, and was ready to destroy them. God’s word then was like thunder and lightning and devouring fire, overbearing and consuming so frail and tender a creature as man, who is like the grass and flower of the field. God’s voice is now gentle, delivered in a pleasant song; and instead of being like lightning to destroy and consume, is like the gentle showers and refreshing dew to the tender grass, instructing, reproving, warning, revealing not only His will, but His great mercy, in a manner adapted to man’s tender frame. There is much of the glorious gospel in this song, and even the warnings and threatenings that are in it are delivered in an evangelical manner, much in the same way that they were delivered by the gentle voice of the glorious Messiah. All the songs of Scripture are the voice of the gospel. The glorious things of the gospel are their foundation and subject-matter, and therefore in them God’s word drops as the rain, etc.

Deuteronomy 32:5

Deu. 32:5. “Their spot,” etc. In all probability here is a reference had to those spots mentioned in Lev. 13, where are rules for the trials of spots, whether they were leprous spots or no. There are many spots there mentioned that something resembled the leprosy, notwithstanding which the diseased person was to be pronounced clean, and might still be looked upon as of the congregation of Israel, and allowed the privileges of such. But if the spot was upon trial found to be a leprosy, he was to be separated from the congregation, - his spot was not the spot of God’s people, and he was not to be looked upon as one of them.

Deuteronomy 32:14

Deu. 32:14. It is a further evidence that God intended wine, which is the juice of the grape squeezed or pressed out, to be a type of the blood of Christ shed under His extreme sufferings as a sacrifice, that the word used in Genesis 40:11 for pressing grapes in order to get thence wine, is the same that is used for killing or sacrificing. The chief butler, relating his dream, says he sweated or pressed the grapes into Pharaoh’s cup. Thus the word signifies to sacrifice, or to cut the throat, as they did in sacrificing, and is everywhere so used, as appears by the Hebr. Con., and this text is mentioned as the only exception where it is used to squeeze or press grapes, which is a good argument that the pressing of grapes was a type of the sufferings of Christ, [which were] the antitype of the sufferings and deaths of their sacrifices of old.

Deuteronomy 32:50

Deu. 32:50. “And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people.” God ordered that Aaron and Moses should go up to the tops of mountains to die, to signify that the death of godly men is but an entrance into a heavenly state. It is evident that heaven is sometimes typified by the tops of the mount by Hebrews 8:5 compared with 12:22. So Christ was transfigured in the mount, and appeared in glory with both Old-Testament and New-Testament saints, and the glory of God in a cloud, to be a type of the heavenly state. Vide Note on Exodus 24:18. No. 71.